The Closed Circle
by Kit2000
Summary: Let's pretend that Hope could do time-travelling himself. Where would he head to if he had such opportunity? A Hope/Lightning one-shot.


_A/N Hello there! As we promised, we bring a new story about Light and Hope. Actually, we are not the authors of this one-shot. The idea belongs to us and we really wanted to write it, but we had no time and other excuses that stay in a way of every author when it comes to writing =_= So, we asked a dear friend of ours to give birth to this idea by writing this fic as a gift for Kit2000's birthday. And she did a wonderful work! We are very thankful to __**Morrigan33 **__for spending her time writing this story. _

_So, we have translated the Russian version into English and added some minor descriptions. We hope you will like this story and leave a review!_

_**And before you start reading, let's pretend that Hope could do time-travelling himself.**_

**The Closed Circle**

10 years had passed since the day Lightning had been warped to Valhalla to defend Etro, but Hope still couldn't accept her disappearance. Couldn't and didn't want to. His life without Lightning seemed empty and meaningless. Estheim didn't dare to hope that the divine warrioress would ever return his feeling; just being with her was enough for him. He dreamed to become her loyal knight, who would protect and admire his mistress.

And now Lightning was gone. Her eyes of sky-azure colour, pink locks that fell on her shoulders in a soft wavy manner, her smile that was so special and priceless because it rarely touched her lips,-Hope was afraid that he would never see all that again. All he was left to do was travelling through timeline and hoping that the fate would give him a chance to meet his beloved woman again. If only for a short moment…

And one day he had a success: he appeared at the same Military Academy Lightning once studied at. Oh, miracle! It was even the right timeline!

The young man found her on a sport ground and almost rushed to her side to catch her in a tight embrace under a fit of feelings, but he manage to get a grip of his emotions just in time. Hope understood that it was dangerous for them to meet, because it could cause damage to the timeline, the space of temporary continuum and many other important and complicated things. That was why he hid himself in a shadow of sport halls and started watching Light.

The older Farron looked so babyish and seemed so fragile and defenceless in her young 16. But still the rudiments of that rigid stubbornness, that turned a common girl Claire into a brave fighter named Lightning, were already noticeable. Hope admired her candidly, watching as she accurately practiced different exercises, pulled herself up, ran circles. She was so graceful, flexible…

The young man recalled some lines from an old poem he once heard somewhere.

"Who made you the way you are?" he whispered soundlessly with his lips. "I am looking at you and my gaze rejoices… You are just like from a fairy-tale."

Claire Farron was finishing her 10th circle at the stadium. After the practice she had some free time and as any other young and beautiful girl she could spend it with her friends, have a shopping, or maybe go on a date. But Miss Farron wasn't interested in all those things. She practiced hard to become stronger, to become a reliable support for her younger sister—her little and fragile Serah. But it was not needless to say that beautiful Claire was popular among boys, some of them even confessed their undying love to her, but every admirer ended up with a broken heart. She had no time for love affairs. Moreover, even if she got a reputation of "look but touch-me-not" type of a woman, in reality, she was very shy person who felt herself embarrassed in men's company and tried to hide her timidity by looking cold and unapproachable.  
And today Claire stuck at the stadium as at any other day. At first there were pull-ups, then she did push-ups, and now she was jogging. After finishing another circle, the girl stopped to catch her breath and wipe some beads of sweat from her forehead away. But suddenly the wind had risen and tore off a uniform cap from her head.

"Oh, no!" Claire rushed to catch the stolen cap, since it was a property of the Military Academy and if she lost it, she would get in a big trouble later.

But it seemed that the wind was in high mood that day. It swirled the cap, lifted it high in the air and then would drop it to the ground, and when Farron was about to grab her headgear, the wind would playfully drag it from under her nose. It looked like it was teasing her and her nerves. Finally, the cap had been blown to the far end of the sport ground and Claire had no strength to follow it anymore. The girl was ready to fall in despair when a young man walked out of the shadows near the sport halls and caught the ill-fated headgear with incredible deftness and gracefulness. Claire froze on her spot open-mouthed, while the young stranger send her a genuine smile and headed towards her, gripping her cap in his gloved hands. He had quite unusual, unique even, appearance, and his hair was very light, almost silver-coloured. And also there were emerald-green eyes that mesmerized the girl to her own surprise. She unexpectedly noticed that the world around her had vanished, and there was nothing else except those delightful eyes, which held so much tenderness, an ocean of tenderness in them, yet there was something else, something she could not find words to describe, but it was alluring and intimidating at the same time.

"I suppose, it belongs to you," his soft voice brought Claire back from her little trance. She felt her cheeks getting warmer as a betraying blush started to show itself on her young face.

"_Bet, I was staring at him like a fool…why did those thoughts even crossed my mind in the first place? There is nothing unusual in his eyes!_"

"Th-thank you," Farron uttered timidly, taking her cap back from the stranger's outstretched hands. "Sorry for troubling you…"

"It's alright. It wasn't a bother at all," he smiled so gently that Claire felt her heart flickered in excitement.

"Emm," she started unsurely, "how about I will treat you to some coffee in a sign of gratitude? It's a dinner-time right now…"

Farron got surprised by her own boldness herself. She was asking a man she had just met on a date! But for some unknown reason, the girl didn't want him to leave just yet, she wanted to make him stay a little longer. She wanted to look in those tender eyes for eternity…

And he was taken aback by her sudden offer. The Lightning he knew would have never said anything like that, she would rather turn her back to him and ignore his efforts to help. But now it was her younger self, the Light he had never knew but dreamed to know about. And if only somebody could know how he wanted to say "yes" to young Miss Farron, but suddenly he managed to bring himself back to reality, to the cruel reality he was facing.

"Thank you, but I….unfortunately… I have something I must do right now," the handsome stranger babbled so quickly, that it seemed that he got scared of something. "I have to go. Farewell!"

"But…could you please tell me your name then?!" Claire cried out to his retreating figure.

The man stopped on his tracks, turned around slowly bending his head in a deep thought and then he unexpectedly ran to the girl and touched her silky cheek with his lips in a feather-like kiss.

"We will meet again. I promise." He whispered in her ear and then rushed to the building, hiding himself behind the corner. The moment he reached his shelter, Hope covered his hot and red face with his palms, as he pressed his back to the cold surface of the wall. Kissing her like that was a mistake, but he was so happy that he while committing that crime. Now he had another precious memory of his Lightning that he would treasure in his heart for the rest of his life.

"I don't want to know any farewells, I long to live in a single breath with you and I crave for telling you over and over again one simple thing…I love you, I love you, Claire…" he whispered with his eyes closed, as he imagined the face of the only one, who stole his heart away. With a strong determination to find a way to save her and bring her back home, the young scientist opened his emerald-like eyes and headed to find the time gate.

Meanwhile, Farron stood on a sport ground all dumbfounded and embarrassed, her palm never leaving the spot on her cheek where her encounter had left a kiss.

"I am Hope Estheim" the boy answered in commotion to the lady soldier, whose name he still didn't know. The silver-haired teenager was too serious for his 14 years old; though he already had a reputation of genius technician, no one of his forced company knew about it yet.

Lightning was amazed not because of his looks and the way he held himself among elders. She was stroke by his eyes that were of the colour of the purest emeralds. The moment she looked into them, Farron couldn't get rid of a déjà vu feeling. She was sure that she had seen those incredible eyes somewhere before, but couldn't remember where exactly. There was only a warm and indescribably pleasant sensation that filled her body whenever she glanced at young Estheim.

In the end, Lightning decided to leave her poor brain and its memories alone, since she couldn't recall what she needed at the moment, and just crossed her arms on her chest, eyeing the youngest member of her so-called group of misfortune.

"You may call me Lightning".

Forgetting about their bad luck for a moment, Hope could swear that he saw a shadow of a slightest smile on her imperturbable face.

The circle had been closed.

_A/N So, how was it? Please, leave a review and tell us about your impressions. We will be very glad to hear what you think! Thank you for reading!_


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